A Very Snowy Week! 1~24~14

Let me begin by briefly sharing what a crazy second week it was: Staff development day on Monday, students were released early (10:30!) on Wednesday (because of snow), then a late start on thursday (because of snow). So, when Friday rolled around, and was actually a full day, I was quite excited!      

On Friday, we had Brain Wave and Word a Day right away in the morning. Students will be decorating their Valentine’s Day boxes soon so, today for art, the class learned how to cut hearts out of construction paper. This was much more of a challenge than you might think! We’re talking about the kind of hearts you create by folding a piece of paper in half and then cutting “half of a heart” shape out of it. 

Some of the students understood the concept right away and needed minimal assistance cutting out hearts. However, the majority of the class, had to hear step by step directions several times before they could catch on. I loved seeing the students at all of these different levels! I was able to work one on one with the students to help them. 

By the end of the lesson I think the students were a little tired of hearing me say the word fold! These are the basic, step by step directions we gave the students in hopes of making their “heart cutting out” as easy as possible: 

Hold the fold

Start with your pencil on the fold

Draw the number two by going UP and around your thumb

Hold the fold and cut following your line 

The end goal for art today was a heart collage that would brighten up the classroom. I love how different they turned out!

Fridays are also Mystery Reader days. Rather than only having a mystery readers come in during I Love to Read month, my mentor teacher tries to schedule one every Friday. The idea is for students to understand that reading is important all year long, not just during the month of February.

I volunteered to be today’s Mystery Reader! I was able to read two books with the students, “Snowmen at Night” by Caralyn Buehner and “The Smiley Snowman” by M. Christina Butler. I thought these books were very fitting given the snowy week we had been through!